Eagles? I definitely be there...

Monday, May 10, 2010

It was a cool, sunny day and again…the kind of day for running pr’s. I had told myself it would be a long day and so I planned my park circumnavigation course – the one I had done a week ago on a hot day and turned in a time of 73 minutes. I knew I could beat that because of the conditions, but by how much?

Earlier in the day, Eric of Yoga fame and running prowess (he was a state champ at 1600 meters in 1988 and went on to run for Indiana University as their second man – second to the best distance runner in America and future Olympian, Bob Kennedy) had called to invite me to a group run on Thursday. Now…I’m a lot of things, but I’m not stupid when it comes to picking the company I keep on a run. Eric’s crowd is not for me. They meet down on the Towpath on Thursday nights and, like the running studs they are, pound each other into the earth to see who will scream ‘uncle’ first. Sound like fun? Fuhget about it!

Later I spoke with another old friend who would also be running with the group – Don Alexander. Don and I were business partners for years in the fitness testing business and were still close friends. He knows me pretty well and when I said I didn’t want to run with these guys and have my head handed to me, he was prepared.

“We meet in the park right where those eagle’s nests are roped off by the rangers. You can still get close enough for some good pictures, though,” he said.

“I’ll be there,”  I replied.  Eagles? Damn – I’m a sucker for eagles.

Anyway, I was thinking I wanted to push myself pretty hard because if I wanted to have any chance of keeping the slowest of these guys in binocular range on Thursday, I’d have to be running my fastest. I started into my run with this in mind and moved out pretty aggressively. I had only one timed check point about three miles into the run and reached that 3 minutes faster than I had last week. Perfect.

I was feeling good and was sure I was running much faster than a week ago right through to the 50-minute mark. Then the legs started to come off. Pushing the pace for an hour will do that and that’s what I was up to. If I hadn’t run the day before, maybe things would have been different, but I had. Still…I figured just try to hold a half way decent pace for the remainder of the run and at least I’d have a pr.

I struggled over the last mile, but was determined not to slow. I hit the car in 65:42, which was a full 7 minutes faster for the course. Not too shabby. That and an ATV and I’ll stay right with those guys on Thursday…

Run duration: 66 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 140.

Calories burned during workout: 1115.